By Urban Anomie Students looking to pursue a career in mummifying will soon be able to enroll in SAIT’s Mummification program. Launching in 2018, the two-year diploma program is being touted as the first of its kind in over 2000 years, according to Cindy Amenhotep, the program’s Academic Chair within the School of Health and[continue reading…]

Selwyn W. Gyles II was born in a prison orphanage in Eastern Latveria to a one-legged ballerina named Liberty. His father, whose name he never did learn, was a founding member of the Cirque Du Oeufs Brouillés Travelling Spectacular, but suffered a tragic end while performing the bullet catch trick alongside his inexperienced novitiate, known to the world now as David Copperfield.

At the age of four, wishing her son to live a richer, more full life free from the rule of a merciless dictator, his mother arranged to have him smuggled out of Latveria by travelling merchant.

His benefactor, known only as Stromboli, earned a modest living hustling exotic cheeses, but his real wealth came from smuggling illegal Gouda inside of wooden puppets. He took pity on that little boy and his mother, and agreed to hide Selwyn aboard his horse carriage in exchange for five silver pieces. Insulted that her son was only worth five silver pieces, she gave the man 20 and called it a deal.

Travelling all over Asia, Europe, and Africa with Stromboli, Selwyn developed an appreciation for all things unique, ridiculous, and bizarre, and became enamoured with the art of story telling. What began as a skill he used to hustle customers into buying basic dumb-dumb cheese at insanely inflated prices, soon grew into a passion for reporting on his journeys with his own brand of snark, satire, and hyperbole.

He shared stories of his adventures with new people he encountered, and found great joy in bringing — from that time authorities in India tried to stop a man from taking his pet tiger onto a train, to his kerfuffle with a group of locals in Manchester over the colour of his scarf, blue and black apparently representing Manchester City of the Premier League—or “those wankstain Blues,” as the doctor who was sewing stitches into his cheek explained.

The taste of cheese grew stale for Selwyn, and at the age of 20 he crossed the Pacific to a land where he was not being sued for libel, defamation, or misrepresentation, and was free to discover a whole new continent.

Adventure after adventure, he longed to tell others of the wonders he encountered. However, while attempting to land a job, he soon discovered Canadian companies insisted their employees have some sort of piece of paper with their name on it.

And so, Selwyn went off to College and University where he didn’t really learn anything . . . but with a few pieces of paper with his name printed on them in hand, he set off on a new journey: one that didn’t quite pay him the megabucks . . . at least he gets decent benefits.

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By Dylan Random About 45 officers with the Calgary Police olfactory crimes division were on patrol along strategic points in the city this weekend, conducting a deodorant bylaw enforcement operation after receiving numerous complaints about “foul-smelling barbarians” in the city. “Warmer weather has created a surge in stink-related complaints,” says Cst. David Shelly of the olfactory[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie The Canadian government has stepped up its efforts to sort out the peanut butter crisis gripping millions of people in the country, in response to widespread reports of malnutrition and depression since Jif peanut butter abandoned the Canadian market in 2010. Today, some 122,000 people—mostly children—in Alberta, Ontario, and the Maritimes are severely[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie The distant ice world is no longer a dwarf planet, at least according to the new definition of the term voted on by astronomers in Prague this week. “This is a major blow to Pluto, which has suffered enough humiliation in recent years,” said astronomer Rob Hawthorne of Mount Royal University in Calgary.[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie “Keep fit and have fun.” Or as Joanne McLeod of Body Break likely means, “Keep fit and fuck off.” During last week’s episode of The Amazing Race Canada, favourites McLeod and partner Hal Johnson were eliminated from the show after a gruelling challenge in Regina. At one point during the episode, McLeod was thought to[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie The tsunami that struck Calgary and the town of High River in June has left the city with countless sinkholes – some capable of swallowing people, some, entire city blocks. On Thursday, the southwest neighbourhood of Silverado was noticed to be missing by a mail carrier on her route, and experts agree that[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie CALGARY, AB — The July 31 shark-attack on a Calgary man inside city limits has prompted Calgary Police to suspend all water activities in the Bow and Elbow River, as well as the Glenmore Reservoir, until the shark is caught. The incident occurred just off Prince’s Island Park, and the victim—who is alive,[continue reading…]

TORONTO — The CBC has severed ties with its chief correspondent and host of The National, Peter Mansbridge, saying it determined his environmental stance on the use of grocery shopping bags failed to meet the network’s code of ethics. Just hours after receiving an anonymous tip that Mansbridge had his groceries bagged in non-biodegradable plastic[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie Ward 15 Councillor Charlie Bain introduced a motion Friday that would require all Calgary dog owners to remove their dog’s teeth, regardless of breed, before the dog turns six months old. The motion comes after several dog attacks in the city in recent weeks, and Bain is confident that without teeth, dogs will[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie Suicide rates among family dogs have risen sharply in the past six months, prompting concerns from families and professionals. The reasons for human suicide are often complex and multi-faceted, and officials and researchers acknowledge that no one can explain with absolute certainty what is behind the rise in suicides of our K9[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie After years of speculation and rumours, the Calgary Flames have officially unveiled plans to convert an old Target location in the city’s northwest into their new world class arena. The new state of the art facility attached to Market Mall will house a Starbucks location, escalators that can move visitors and their friend[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie A Calgary Man proclaimed proudly to anybody who would listen on Saturday night that he was in three physical confrontations with other Stampede-goers, and that he was successful in each attempt at proving his manliness. Police asked the man to be quiet as they escorted him off the Stampede grounds and into the back[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie Whack-A-Mole will be returning to the Olympics in 2020. After presentations by groups pushing for the inclusion of tug-of-war, mud wrestling, and Whack-A-Mole before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Sunday in Buenos Aires, the IOC voted to admit the high-pressure game that challenges the speed and concentration of athletes back into the[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie The province of British Columbia announced today that they have partnered with various marijuana growers in the design and creation of a new school curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12 students. The marijuana industry’s involvement in the province’s educational development is creating concern among uptight conservative groups and parents. Social Reform Party hopeful,[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie With a mounting fiscal deficit, The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that it has sold Alaska back to Russia for more than $130,000 in an all-cash deal that will see the freezing cold state become Russian territory for the first time since 1867. President Obama’s chief of Polar Affairs, Henry Fielding, said on[continue reading…]

By Urban Anomie The Liberal Party is banking on Justin Trudeau’s dashing good looks and wavy locks of chestnut hair to turn around the party’s finances in order to take on the formidable Conservative fundraising machine. With his sizzling mane of hair and dimples that can melt steel, the 41-year-old relative newcomer to politics has both[continue reading…]